milestones

While at the dinner table tonight, Q mentioned that his tooth hurt. He said something about biting a white cup (styrofoam ?) at school and now it was hurting. Well, just a few minutes ago, while brushing teeth, he mentioned it again. So, I checked, and sure enough, it's loose.

When his little mini-chicklet tooth wiggled, my heart sped up and then it dropped. Seriously.

He, on the other hand, jumped up and down and squealed (literally, squealed) with delight.

We came downstairs and told Daddy, who is of course, duly excited.

In the whole scheme of things, it's only a tooth. But it's my sons tooth - my first child has his first loose tooth and I feel like crying. He is upstairs right now, singing the joys of his loose tooth. His words, getting in to bed tonight, "Oh, I can't wait to tell everyone about my tooth. Well, except people that don't know me." He's so excited, and I feel awful for feeling awful.

He is convinced that his tooth will fall out by the time he turns six, which is in about six weeks.

We'll see how it goes. I may need somebody to hand me a kleenex.

Hungry

So, it's been a long week. Last Friday I had a visit with the periodontist ... while not a completely horrible visit, there were easily a dozen other things I'd rather be doing. If I thought for more than a minute, I bet I could come up with a dozen more.

I remember when I was pregnant with Q, I ended up avoiding the lunch room because I couldn't stand the stories - "Oh Lord, my labor was four days long!" "I had a ten pound baby and seven thousand stitches" "My sister has this friend ... " and so it went. I retreated to my desk for the last few months in order to preserve my sanity.

Much the same for my periodontal work. When I mentioned to someone that I was having a gum graft (not too pleasant of a title, eh?) they would make this face and then say, "Oh, I'm sorry, I bet that's gonna hurt" or "Better you than me" or "Wow, sucks to be you, huh?"

By the time 10:00 rolled around Friday morning, I was going to punch the next person who even dared comment about a procedure that they know NOTHING about. What I wanted to do was ask my brother in law how it felt when the doctor stuck his finger up his butt for a prostate exam, I bet that's not too comfortable now is it. But no, I kept my thoughts to myself and proceeded to the perio. I was in a stellar mood when I got there, though.

It wasn't too bad, the recovery isn't horrible, although I will admit that I am hungrier than all get out, since I can only eat soft foods on the right side of my mouth. Plus, I have stitches in the roof of my mouth and I can feel them when I talk. That's just annoying. I hope they get taken out on Friday when I go back for my follow up.

Maybe thats it - if you can't be nice, maybe you shouldn't say anything at all, especially when it's obvious that the person that said procedure will be done to is already nervous to start with.